What are Google penalties?

Google penalties are sanctions applied by Google to a website that violates its Webmaster Guidelines. These can result from using practices such as keyword stuffing, buying backlinks, or creating thin or duplicate content. A penalty can significantly reduce a site's visibility in search results, either by lowering its ranking or removing it from the index entirely.

How do I know if I have a Google penalty?

Signs of a Google penalty include a sudden drop in traffic or rankings and receiving a notification in Google Search Console. If no notification is provided, the penalty may be algorithmic, triggered by Google Core Updates. Regularly monitoring your site’s performance in Search Console can help you identify issues early.

How long does a Google penalty last?

The duration of a Google penalty varies. Manual penalties last until the identified issues are fixed and a reconsideration request is approved by Google. Algorithmic penalties resolve automatically once the site is updated to comply with Google’s guidelines and is re-crawled, which can take weeks or even months.

How can I avoid Google penalties?

To avoid Google penalties, follow best practices for SEO by adhering to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Focus on creating high-quality, original content, avoiding spammy backlinks, and ensuring your site is technically sound with no black-hat SEO techniques. Regular audits can also help catch and address issues before they escalate.

How do I fix Google penalties?

Fixing a Google penalty requires identifying the cause. For manual penalties, address the specific issue outlined in the Search Console notification and submit a reconsideration request. For algorithmic penalties, review your site for violations, update your content, and improve backlink quality. Tools like Google Search Console and professional SEO services can help guide the recovery process. For a detailed guide, explore strategies for Google penalty recovery to help navigate the process effectively.

Google Penalty Recovery

Do you think your website’s been penalized by Google? We can help.

Our UK digital agency are experts at identifying and solving Google penalties.

If you think you have been peanalized by Google, we can help.

We’ve helped dozens of websites successfully recover from a Google penalty.

Google’s algorithm is constantly changing, and the latest algorithm update is starting to take effect, with many website owners experiencing a notable drop in traffic and enquiries from websites.

We can help assess your website to figure out exactly what affected you and why.

Examples of major algorithm updates

A prime example of a major algorithm was Penguin, which was released in April 2012. This update specifically targets backlinks to websites. Links from poor-quality websites, link farms or irrelevant websites are seen as “webspam”. Websites linking from them were penalized.

Backlinks have been an important part of Google’s algorithm, and it has now evolved to prevent unethical techniques from gaining ranking advantages. There have been many more similar, smaller updates, such as Penguin 2.0.

More recently, in March 2019 there was a broad core algorithm update that affected a large number of websites. This update was general, in attempts to strengthen the overall quality of search.

Identifying the penalty

We will identify exactly why your site was issued with a penalty in the first place and devise a solution.

Work on resolving the issue

After identifying why Google issued the penalty, we will use white-hat methods to get your site back on track.

Google guidelines

We will make sure your site remains following Google guidelines to prevent any future penalties.

I think my website has been affected. What can I do?

Being affected by a Google penalty isn’t the end of the world.
Websites can recover from algorithm updates. There are a number of steps that we can do to help you recover:

Collate and analyse backlinks – identify the links that are hurting your website
Put an action plan in place to request backlink removal, and follow up to check that the links have gone
Ensure that future links are from relevant, trusted and good-quality sources. A well thought-out content marketing strategy can help attract natural back linking. White papers, blog articles and infographics create excellent sharing and linking opportunities
Performing an SEO content audit of your website to identify the pages that have duplicated and thin content, which do not add any value
Ensuring that your website is E-E-A-T compliant, therefore it is fully matching the search intent of the users

Real-time fluctuations

This neat widget by SEMrush allows you to check SERP volatility in real-time, so you can check back here if you suspect there may be an algorithm update.

It is important to note that sometimes these fluctuations are normal, and occur as part of Google’s ongoing attempt to stabilize its search engine.

Google Penalty Recovery FAQs

What are Google penalties?

Google penalties are sanctions applied by Google to a website that violates its Webmaster Guidelines. These can result from using practices such as keyword stuffing, buying backlinks, or creating thin or duplicate content. A penalty can significantly reduce a site’s visibility in search results, either by lowering its ranking or removing it from the index entirely.
How do I know if I have a Google penalty?

Signs of a Google penalty include a sudden drop in traffic or rankings and receiving a notification in Google Search Console. If no notification is provided, the penalty may be algorithmic, triggered by Google Core Updates. Regularly monitoring your site’s performance in Search Console can help you identify issues early.
How long does a Google penalty last?

The duration of a Google penalty varies. Manual penalties last until the identified issues are fixed and a reconsideration request is approved by Google. Algorithmic penalties resolve automatically once the site is updated to comply with Google’s guidelines and is re-crawled, which can take weeks or even months.
How can I avoid Google penalties?

To avoid Google penalties, follow best practices for SEO by adhering to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Focus on creating high-quality, original content, avoiding spammy backlinks, and ensuring your site is technically sound with no black-hat SEO techniques. Regular audits can also help catch and address issues before they escalate.
How do I fix Google penalties?

Fixing a Google penalty requires identifying the cause. For manual penalties, address the specific issue outlined in the Search Console notification and submit a reconsideration request. For algorithmic penalties, review your site for violations, update your content, and improve backlink quality. Tools like Google Search Console and professional SEO services can help guide the recovery process. For a detailed guide, explore strategies for Google penalty recovery to help navigate the process effectively.